- Big updates for the jungler role are expected in the next season of League of Legends
- Riot aims to bring more variety to the role
- Companions will be the first step to achieving this
Riot developers want to make more champions viable as junglers for their secondary role.
Riot Is Implementing New Changes
The League of Legends World Championship 2022 has barely just ended, but Riot Games is already preparing for the next competitive season. Part of these preparations include some controversial changes regarding the biggest LoL tournaments, but the Riot devs also want to change up the game’s meta.
The team now embarks on a new project that aims to bring more champions into the jungle to have more variety in plays. “We think it’s cool when other champs can jungle,” League designer Tim “Truexy” Jiang said ahead of the title’s vast 2023 preseason overhaul update.
Jiang further explained Riot’s ideas in a TikTok video, pointing out how wide the champion pools for solo lanes are. Top lane can have bruisers, tanks, juggernauts, and even several engage characters. Meanwhile, midlaners can choose between assassins, mages, roaming champions, and enchanters. Riot now hopes to bring this variety to junglers as well.
“As long as we can support it, there’s no reason jungle cannot be like mid lane, top lane, where there’s all these different archetypes,” Jiang said.
What Challenges Will Riot Face?
Making such a big change to a whole class of champions would not be easy. There are some champions that simply won’t work, Jiang gave an example with Camille, who dominated the Rift due to her explosive mobility when she became a jungle pick. “It’s super unfair to play against Camille in the early game,” Jiang explained, “especially with fog.”
However, other champs should work perfectly as junglers. when Morgana emerged as a viable choice for the role, the Riot devs were quite happy. Neeko’s spot as a fringe jungler is also hailed as successful proof of Riot’s new concept.
The companions Riot has introduced into the game are also part of the dev team’s plans for the junglker changes. “Since more of your clearing power is going to be in companions… that should open up a lot more opportunities for fringe junglers to be more viable,” Jiang said.
Right now, the jungle meta in League’s ranked playlists is centered around characters like Graves, Viego, and Hecarim, as according to stat aggregator Lolalytics, they boast more than 10% pick rates. Other powerful jungler picks include Bel’Veth, Fiddlesticks, and Olaf.
The first stage of Riot’s new plan to reform the jungler meta is to in traduce the companions. They will arrive in the game when the 2023 League preseason update hits live servers on November 16. Players will have the option to choose between three pets – the defensive pick Salamander, the mobility buffing Fox, and the slows dishing out Cat.
